In a commercial printing industry in which printed matter (a catalog, an advertisement, etc.) is received from a customer, a printed output which the customer desires is generated from the printed matter, and the printed output is delivered to the customer to gain remuneration, multiple steps from receiving of the printed matter to delivering are followed to conduct operations. The steps from the receiving of the printed matter to the delivering include submitting of a manuscript for the printed matter from the customer; accepting of printing conditions of the printed output; color correcting, layout correcting, stitch position correcting as pre-press operations; proof printing to confirm pre-press results of the customer; printing operations; printing stitching after printing; a post-process treatment such as compression bonding; and delivering of the printed output to the customer. Increase/decrease occurs for the steps from receiving of the printed matter to delivering depending on the printing conditions of the printed output which the customer desires.
In the commercial printing industry, volume printing of printed outputs is handled using the above-described steps due to a large number of orders received from the customers to provide a high-volume printing of the printed matter. Moreover, with respect to the printed matter for the high-volume printing, printing conditions for the printed output from the customer are often fixed. Thus, in the commercial printing industry, a printed output which the customer desires is generated in a printing cycle in which the high-volume printing is performed with one determined printing condition and printing of a lot is completed, after which the printing condition is changed and the high-volume printing is performed again.
In this printing cycle, the above-described multiple steps often occur when the printing condition is changed. Therefore, when there is no change to the printing condition, a commercial printing vendor can perform consecutive printing within the same step, making it possible to perform an efficient high-volume printing operation.
Recently, in the commercial printing industry, a POD (Print on Demand) market is emerging in which relatively small-lot printed matter called the POD is delivered to a customer in a short lead time. In the POD market, orders are often received from multiple customers. As a result, in the POD market, printing conditions of printed outputs and printed matter for which a manuscript is submitted to the commercial printing vendor are often diverse.
At the same time, in recent years, digitization of the printed matter has been in progress, so that control is conducted for generating the printed matter using a computer. For example, a technique called a workflow is emerging in which a manuscript for printed matter is submitted over a network as electronic data, and the above-described multiple steps are controlled. For example, the above-described workflow also includes a workflow in which a printing operation with the above-described multiple steps is defined with a job ticket called a JDF (Job Definition Format) and the printing operation is controlled with a printing system.
With such changes in the printing environment, the commercial printing vendors have promoted computerization of the printing system for generating the printed matter for which an order is received. On the other hand, it is becoming necessary for the commercial printing vendor to build a printing system which can handle diverse printing conditions of the printed output from the customer. Moreover, in order to generate diverse printed outputs as a desire of the customer, it is also becoming necessary to respond in system aspects such as introducing multiple printer apparatuses and device (peripheral) apparatuses and to respond in operational step aspects such as changing of multiple steps in a relatively short cycle.
It is becoming necessary for the commercial printing vendor to respond in the above-described manner, but it is also becoming necessary to make a further operational efficiency improvement for generating profits. Simplifying operations is one measure which leads to improving the operational efficiency.
In a production printing (PP) business, pagination and printing setting processes in multiple applications and DFE (Digital front end) are performed as pre-processing (a pre-press step). Of the printing setting processes, a finisher process involves many setting items compared to a multi-functional printer (MFP), such as various cutting and folding types besides stapling and punching.
There is a related art scheme which designates in advance, with a job ticket, etc., a post-processing (finishing) apparatus which performs a finisher process. Moreover, a related art scheme is also known in which even a printing job designated in advance by the post-processing apparatus is suitably carried out using the post-processing apparatus selected arbitrarily based on a judgment of an operator himself to suitably carry out an operation using a usable post-processing unit (see FIG. 1, for example.)